We are generally clever, we humans. We figure things out by what we see about us. But there are two problems – what we haven’t seen yet and what that we make decisions without considering what we haven’t seen yet. Consider this:
…in recent months at a clinic in Liège, Belgium, the patient, now 29, showed traces of brain activity in response to commands from doctors. Now, according to a new report, he has begun to communicate: in response to simple questions, like “Do you have any brothers?,” he showed distinct traces of activity on a brain imaging machine that represented either “yes” or “no.” Experts said Wednesday that the finding could alter the way some severe head injuries were diagnosed — and could raise troubling ethical questions about whether to consult severely disabled patients on their care.
One hopes that way down in there the person experiences a pleasant dream-like state. After all, we are not told whether he answered the question about brothers correctly. But it is more likely that it is more like being stuck in a shopping mall at night with no access to any of the stores, roaming the grey hallways, just missing running into the night cleaners over and over. We suspect it yet until we have a device that gives indications, a glowing toggle switch attached to a tiny flicking light bulb on a panel, we presume there is nothing to be indicated. It’s too bad William Blake did not live in the era of amber glowing toggle switches of panels filled with tiny flicking light bulb. He’d have something to say about them in addition to those senses five.
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